ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the cost of a weekly shop will rise if Britain leaves the European Union, that’s the latest warning from the Prime Minister this morning and he’s backed up by a group of former bosses of some of Britain’s biggest retailers who are saying that Brexit would have a devastating effect on the economy.  I’m joined now by Harriet Harman, Labour’s former acting leader, and a very good morning to you.  You’ve just been out shopping with the Prime Minister this morning haven’t you?  Did you buy each other anything?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well it was before the store opened, we were talking to the staff, talking to them about what they were selling and so much of what they sell comes from the EU and there is a real worry that prices would go up if we left the EU and that’s a real issue for people who are on low incomes and for whom the food shopping is really a big part of their bill.  

DM: It’s a prediction isn’t it, you can’t be sure, isn’t this just the latest in a long list of dire warnings from the Remain side?

HARRIET HARMAN: It is a prediction but what is not a prediction, what is a fact, is that the biggest imports we get of food into this country is from the EU, well obviously that stands to reason and if we were outside the free tariff zone and they put tariffs on, the prices would go up.  It is a fact that actually we get so much of our food from the EU and if we weren’t able to have free trade with them and you had to start negotiating new deals then there is a real danger prices would go up and at the same time there is a worry about jobs because being out of the EU, so many of our jobs are connected to the EU.  So it is a fact that so much of our food is connected to the EU and it’s a fact that so many of our jobs are connected to the EU and I’m saying why take the risk?  It’s blindingly obvious it’s a risk if we leave.

DM: But isn’t it also a fact that there is protection within this so-called free trade zone in the form of the Common Agricultural Policy and it pushes up the price of some goods in the shops?

HARRIET HARMAN: But it wouldn’t change that if we were outside.  All that would happen is … you know, people buy Spanish strawberries before they buy the English strawberries that come on the market and actually those Spanish strawberries would end up probably costing more because we’d be outside the free trade zone and the argument that immediately they would let us have the same free trade terms, I mean it would take years to negotiate and meanwhile people would be paying higher bills.  The fact is after so many decades our economy and people’s household budgets and their jobs is very integrated with the European Union.  After all it is 500 million people, they are our nearest neighbours and it is decades we’ve been part of it, it is just a leap in the dark and for people for whom the shopping bill doesn’t matter, they can say yeah, let’s strike out on our own but for people whose jobs and whose bills really depend on it, I think that it’s wrong to be urging that.

DM: What do you make of this argument from – and we’re going to be seeing more of it tomorrow from the Leave side, that if Turkey joins the European Union, 70 odd million, 76 million Turks will be eligible to come to the United Kingdom.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well the point is that Turkey is not going to be joining in the EU, nobody within the EU is proposing that they should be joining.

DM: It wants to.

HARRIET HARMAN: It wants to but nobody within the EU is proposing that Turkey should and if there was a proposal – which there isn’t – any of the 28 countries, including the UK, should veto it.  One of the things is a lot of people haven’t made up their mind on how to vote when it comes to the referendum and a lot of people are saying they want to know the facts.  Well I think it is just completely wrong for the Leave campaign to say it is a matter of fact we wouldn’t have a veto – we would and they should withdraw that today.  We’ve got to keep this debate at a reasonable level.  I am saying yes, I think it would be a problem about food prices, yes there is Treasury analysis underpinning that, people can think about that but to say actually we wouldn’t have a veto on Turkey joining the EU is plain wrong and they shouldn’t descend to that sort of politics when it is people making an important decision.

DM: But people, countries can be bullied out of deploying their veto, who knows what kind of horse trading could take place in the event of an imminent accession to the EU by Turkey in that the Germans could come along and say you’ve got to do this because we’re going to do XY and Z to you?

HARRIET HARMAN: But they are saying we wouldn’t have a veto and we do have a veto so what they are saying is plain wrong and they are trying to get people worried to get them to vote in a way which is disreputable and divisive and there are really strong arguments about the economy and we are happy to have those arguments about jobs and about prices but just to whip up people on the basis of false assertions I think it’s really deplorable and those people who regard themselves as reasonable mainstream politicians but who are for leave, they should really be thinking about this.  Not everybody on the Leave side is an extremist although some of them are but they should really be saying no, we’re not going to go along with this.  That is a shameful advertising campaign.

DM: Who are the extremists on the Leave side?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I don’t really want to say who is and who isn’t but there are some mainstream people in the Leave campaign and they should be saying … I mean we have got a government minister today saying that, I mean she really …

DM: Penny Mordaunt, is she an extremist?  

HARRIET HARMAN: Well no but she’s a government minister, she’s a mainstream politician and for her to be saying something which is factually not true, she ought to come out today and say yes, I got it wrong, factually I got it wrong, Britain would have a veto were there to be any suggestion that Turkey was to join the EU, which there isn’t a suggestion except from Turkey but there’s nobody from within the EU saying they should join.

DM: There is so much to talk to you about both campaigns here but I also wanted to talk to you, Harriet Harman, of course about this issue, the polls are telling us that of the not sure’s women are over-represented, a quarter of women don’t seem to know or be able to make up their minds at this point.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well twice as many women as men apparently have yet to make up their mind and that’s why I think we should be putting forward factual arguments but I think there is also a very particular reason for women to be thinking about the importance of staying in the EU because although many of them would be regarded as faceless bureaucrats and they are as male dominated in Europe as they are everywhere else, actually Europe has been a strong friend to women at work.  Like for example part-time workers, there was a directive came from Europe to our government to say you must let part-time workers have the same rights as full-time workers.  No government liked the directive but for women at work that was a very woman friendly directive and there’s a lot of guarantees for women in the Treaty of Rome which was very much ahead of its time, saying you’ve got to pay women equally, you’ve got to treat them equally and I don't think we’re in a post-feminist political nirvana yet where we can afford to say we don’t need that guarantee, would that we were.

DM: Is it worth dusting down there, taking the tarpaulins off the pink bus to get this message across or is it hiding with the Ed Stone somewhere?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well you know … we’re not bringing out the pink bus but thank you for this gesture.

DM: Harriet Harman, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.